


Unlocked

by WreckitAriel



Category: Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 18:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3579177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WreckitAriel/pseuds/WreckitAriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a glitchy recolor of the wrecker is unlocked in Fix-it Felix jr, Ralph and Felix go and try to find clues about the character's origin. But what they are about to discover maybe more complex and horrifying than they have imagined...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

 He looked around the space he was cramped in for the hundredth time. Dull, grey walls, which formed a cube around him, trapping him in the middle.

 For how many years he’d been in there, he’d lost count. It was such a long time ago…

 He got up, and with a violent swing, thrust his pixels into one of the walls. Just like before, the pixels simply bounced off the wall, leaving not even a dent on it.

 Frustrated, he wanted to scream and growl and groan, but he knew he couldn’t.

 For he was a nobody, a swirling cloud of pixels that shifted easily with the slightest movement, trapped for what seemed like eternity.

 He had no voice, but he could see and hear like everyone else. And although he was just a cloud of pixels, he could think, and feel.

 And right now, he felt sad, and lonely, aching to get out of this grey prison.

 But he knew he couldn’t…

 He wasn’t coded a nobody. Just like any other character, he had a home and a definite place in his game. But…something had gone wrong with him, and the game developers saw him as a potential threat to the game. So…they locked him up.

 As the thick grey walls closed in around him, he felt his body lose its form, and break up into a million tiny sparkling pixels.

 He never even got the chance to say goodbye. But how could he? He wasn’t the one to make decisions, the game developers were.

 “We can’t let him out. Not now, not ever.” 

 Those were the last words he heard before he got locked up. 

  _Why_ he had been locked up, this he knew so very well it hurts, sending a ripple of energy across his pixels. 

 For there was a problem with his code. When released, a major disaster would threaten his game, and everything in it. He couldn’t let that happen. What a selfish decision it would be!

 He slid down the wall and sat on the floor, gathering his pixels around him. They were green and flickering, polygons of different sizes. It was quite hard to believe that the pixels were the remains of a former character. _He_ wouldn’t have believed it too, if it didn’t happen to him.

 As far as he knew, he had a connection with a certain character in the game. “Who was it?” He wondered. Was it someone called Rafe or Alf or…

 Ah yes.

 Ralph.

 Wreck-it Ralph. The ‘Big Bad’ of the game.

 Ralph had been living for at least 30 years as a completely normal character; and as for him, trapped in a grey cube, well…he wouldn’t call that ‘living’, but it sure beats getting unplugged and being deleted. 

 The sadness inside overwhelmed him. He curled his pixels into a corner, sighing deeply inside.

 Before his lockage, he had been left with a vague promise, and that is when a player reached the 39th level of the game, and won, he’ll be unlocked. It didn’t take a genius to know that no one had yet reached this level, otherwise, he wouldn’t still in here!

 Pressing his pixels into the wall, he swatted the thoughts of being unlocked away from his mind. The chances of him being released were extremely slim, why even bother to think about it?

 Suddenly, the wall he was pressing on lurched, and his pixels tumbled forward. He was trying to gather his pixels together when the space around him lurched again, this time tilting on the other side. He rolled forward and slammed into another wall, groaning in pain.

 That’s when he heard it.

 He had a _voice_.

 He felt his pixels shifting and sparkling, expanding, and then condensing into a being.

 A body formed, arms and legs grew, hands expanding way bigger than they should be. 

 The cube kept lurching, and he sworn he heard a crack running down one of the walls. 

  _He was being unlocked._

 With an earsplitting _CRACK_ , the walls fell apart, and he was blown into the air. He closed his eyes—eyes that weren’t there before; the wind rustled around him, carrying him away.

 He didn’t open his eyes, he didn’t dare look. But he could feel his code being plugged once more into the game. This time for real.

 The developers had kept their promise after all…

 As he felt his bare feet brush against the rough ground, he knew he couldn’t change what was happening now. But he knew this was a new beginning, a chance to start again. 

 Taking in a deep breath, he opened his eyes, and began his new life…


	2. Chapter 1

 “Ready or not, here I come!”

 I swing my fists toward the wall of the building, the bricks and concrete no match for my sheer strength. 

 “Good work, brother, you’re doing great.” Felix calls from the balcony above. He whips around and doges a few cascading bricks.

 I laugh. Life is like that. I wreck, Felix fixes, I then get tossed off the side of the building, repeat. I used to get mad at this, but now, as they say, ‘one game at a time’, right?

 I climb up the side of the building, smashing a few windows and walls as I passed. The player outside guides Felix down to repair the damage that I have caused.

 “Ralph, seriously?!” Felix asks as hops down from the upper floors, huffing. “This is tiring me out!”

 “Come on, it’s the 38th level after all. The second to last. How easy would you want it to be?” I reply as I leap to the next windowsill and wreck some more.

 As superior as my wrecking skills are, they are no match to the player’s quickness, and before I know it, I am lying face down in the mud puddle again. 

 “Get up, Ralph, it’s the 39th level.” Felix calls.

 The 39th level. 

 Something I haven’t heard of in quite a while. 

 I’ve heard quite a long while ago that when a player managed to reach the last level, and win, something special would occur.

 For the months that happened afterward, not one player came even CLOSE to the 30th level, let alone beat the game. The words slowly faded within the dust cloud of smashing bricks and rapid footfalls in the years that followed…until now.

 “Oh, come on.” I say, rubbing my head with one oversized finger. “What will happen then? A bonus level? A new character? PUH-LEASE. This only happens to new and shiny games out there, not old folks like us.”

 “You’re calling yourself _old_?!” Felix laughs with a chuckle. Then he hops away.

 I fight to wipe the grin away from my face. Yeah, I’m old, so what? I’m still standing.

 I raise my fists and yell “I’M GONNA WRECK IT!!!!” And with that, the 39th level started.

 I leap back into action, slamming my huge fists on every surface I can find. Felix whoops above me, while the Nicelanders scream and hug in terror while they witness the swirling storm of bricks and fury around them.

 “Almost…there!!” Felix calls. Seeing him have repaired most of my damage, I quickly go and smash a few more windows. _‘Man, this player is so good!’_ I think, _‘maybe she does stand a fighting chance against-‘_

 I lose my footing on a loose edge, and I gasp as I fall backwards, barely holding on to the ledge. Felix sees his chance and goes up the fix the rest of the windows. Before long, the Niceland Building is looking as new as it could be.

 Felix has won.

 I climb up to the roof beside him, and give him a pat, or more like a painful slap, with my strength, on his shoulder. “Nice work, Felix.”

 “Aww, gee thanks.” Felix replies while rubbing his shoulder. I feel myself being lifted up by the Nicelanders, and being tossed off the building. 

 After I landed, I lifted my head, just quick enough to glance at a wall of digits and letters scrolling across the screen, blocking the light from outside the game.

  _A kill-screen._ I realize.  I heard before that some games like Pac-Man had kill-screens to signify the end of the game, but…to be honest; it’s not that special really.

 “Well, whatdaya know.” I say to myself as I stand and scrub the mud off my overalls. “Hey Felix, you wanna celebrate? I mean, it’s the last level and all, and…”

 I stop, as I see Felix pointing to a space behind me. I whirl around, seeing nothing. Oh wait, no, a random mass of flickering green pixels floating in midair.

 I stand, transfixed, as the pixels pulsed with energy, and changed, slowly forming a being before my eyes.

 The pixels shift and pulse, giving in more detail to the being every second. From what I can see, it is a human, about my size and everything.

 At long last, the pixels stop flickering, and Felix, the Nicelanders, who at last ventured out of their homes, and I gaze upon the being before.

 Then I let out a gasp, we all did, and then their eyes dart to me, to the being, then back to me again.

 For the new being looks completely like myself.

 From the square jaw, the bulky body, to the oversized hands and feet, there is no doubting that winning the game had unlocked a being like me. Short for two brown strands of hair that flopped over his left forehead, and clad in a green plaid shirt with dark blue overalls, you couldn’t tell me from him.

 My lookalike opens his eyes. They are the greenest I have seen, playful and sparkling with mischief.

 “Hello Ralph,” he says, in a voice slightly higher than mine, “my name is RJ.”

 He stops for a moment, shifting his footing, then continues,

 “I am believed to be your brother.”


	3. Chapter 2

Ralph

 For I while, I just stare at the being, AKA the so-called ‘brother’, before us.

 A fight is going on inside me. _‘Brother?!’_ I think, _‘what brother??’_

 A few moments of awkward silence pass until RJ breaks it.

 “Yeah, I see you’re all looking a bit confused. Well, my friends, so am I; after all, I’ve just been unlocked.”

 I shuffle forward a few steps towards RJ, and cautiously extend my hand. “Hey, there. I’m Ralph, Wreck-it Ralph.”

 “Hey there bro,” he replies, beaming, and then shakes my hand with great gusto. 

 Then for a brief moment, so brief that I could have missed it, RJ’s arm briefly flickered with green sparks, and then returned to normal. 

  _“Wait, is he_ glitching _?!”_ My mind briefly drifted to Vanellope, and the way her code behaved every time she glitched. RJ continues to shake my hand as if nothing had happened. 

  _‘He’s a glitch.’_ I think. _‘Is this the reason why he’s…’_

 At the same time, not sure if I had imagined it, I feel a slight tremor beneath my feet. So slight, it may not have happened at all. I quickly look beyond RJ, but didn’t anything out of the ordinary. 

  _‘Nah, I must have imagined it.’_ I shake off the thoughts, and release my grip on RJ’s hand. I step away to let the others come closer. 

 While the others seem skeptical towards RJ, he greets them all with the same excitement. As I watch from behind, I can’t help wondering why winning the game had unlocked a sort of palette-swap of me. I know that in _Sugar Rush_ , there are quite a few racers who are simply recolors of certain characters, but as far as I’m concerned, this is only happens to racing games, not games like us!

 “Wait, so you’re saying that Ralph had a brother?!” I hear of the Nicelanders ask.

 “Why, yes.” RJ replies. “I was born not after he was.” He smiles, his arms planted at his sides.

 We were so focused on our newcomer that we fail to notice that light from the arcade has fallen in through our screen again, and that our game has been reset back to the first level.

 I hear the sound of another coin being dropped, meaning that another player has come and the game is starting again. “We’d better move away, so that we’ll not be seen by the player, especially RJ.” Felix says.

 The Nicelanders run back to their places in the building, while Felix, RJ and I scurry to the forest beyond the building. That’s when it hit me “shouldn’t RJ have some kind of role in the game? I mean, we unlocked him and all,”

 “Maybe,” RJ shrugs. “But honestly, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do during the game. Do I, uh, just go in and smash things, or, um…”

 “Similar, similar,” I quickly say, clutching his shoulders. “You just stay here, away from the screen. Watch and see how we do it.” I stop briefly, then continue “look, we don’t have much time to access your past and your role, let alone giving you a proper lesson on the game. So, just, uh…”

 “Yeah, RJ, listen to Ralph. Seeing your appearance, I believe that you may have a role similar to that of him, follow what he does, okay?” Felix asks. “Oh, and avoid getting seen. The players might freak out when they see an extra wrecker without proper reason.” He takes one more look at RJ and runs off.

 “Got it.” RJ cocks his head and runs further into the forest. 

 The nagging feeling is back again, and I cannot help wondering what or who RJ really is. But this is not the time for answers. I run far back behind the building and back to the other side of the game, just as the level started. 

 “I’M GONNA WRECK IT!!!” I yell. But just before I moved, I feel another slight tremor quake through the ground again.

  _“Did you feel that?”_ I mouth, but no one seems to notice.

 I dismiss the thoughts once more and entered the game.

RJ 

 Peeking out from the woods, I watch in awe as Ralph savagely tears the building with his bare hands. I look down at my own oversized bare hands.

  _‘Can_ I _do that?!’_ I wonder. Am I coded to be a real wrecker, like Ralph?

 After a few more levels, it became clearly obvious to me of what I’m supposed to do in the game: I am supposed to help Ralph destroy the building as much as possible, and Felix will go and fix the damage; if he fixes it in time, we’ll be tossed off the side of the building and into the mud below. I wince, ‘this is not a good idea.’ I thought.

 I feel a glitch pulse through my code again. Somehow, I feel relieved when I heard that there was not much time to search my code for clues about me. Somehow, a part of me wants to shrink back into the shadows, back to my grey old prison. Somehow, a part of me wants to just go out and blurt everything to Ralph, but the other part tugs me back tightly. 

 I wanna tell, I so wanna tell, but this might ruin the possibility for me to become firmly implanted in the game, to become a real character, to live out my life properly.

 I don’t want them to know my secret…

 I don’t want them to know the real reason that I was locked up…

 I look at the building, and Ralph leaping on and off windowsills to break the walls and windows. 

 I think he believes me with all his heart.

 I’ll tell him more later, I’ll think of something. I need to speak carefully, for every wrong word could result in me going back into lockage.

 This is my new beginning, my new life, and I won’t ruin it.


	4. Chapter 3

Ralph

 “All clear, the arcade’s closed!” I hear Yuni call from outside. I stand up from the mud puddle and rubbed the dirt off from my overalls.

 I raise my head and call towards the forest. “Hey RJ, the arcade’s closed. You can come out now.”

 RJ walks out of the trees, and as he did, his body burst into green sparks again. The ground tremors again, this time stronger.

 Felix hops down from above and lands beside us. He takes off his medal and shoves it in one of his pockets. After my previous quest for ‘wreck-ognition’, Felix had occasionally given me some of his medals as a sign that I should be rewarded for my wrecking in the game. I had offered to teach him some wrecking skills, but he had politely refused.

 “You’re gonna go and visit Tammy, right?” I tease Felix.

 “Um…who’s Tammy?” RJ asks in a hushed tone.

 “His wife” I whisper back.

 “Nah, I think I’ll stay here tonight, in my game.” Felix replies, “Why don’t you show RJ around the game?” He asks back. For the whole time, I notice his eyes never left RJ, and they still cast a look of suspicion.

 “Oh, can we Ralph? Can you show me?” RJ asks excitedly, clutching my arm.

 “Um…yeah, sure.” I mutter, although I had other plans for the night, mainly visiting Vanellope in Sugar Rush and swiping a few cherries from Pac-Man.

 “Great,” RJ says “so where shall we start?”

* * *

 “And here,” I say, pointing, “is East Niceland. This is where the guys from _Q*bert_ and I live.”

 I had purposely put this as our last stop since this is near my home. Earlier, RJ and I had explored every inch of the forest, and RJ had even begged Felix and the Nicelanders to let us take us look at the building apartments. Of course, we both needed to climb up the side of the building to visit since we were both too tall for the lift, and only Felix was brave enough to let us visit his apartment and the penthouse, which I think RJ has taken a liking to. 

 “ _Q*bert_? What kind of game is that?” RJ asks me.

 “It’s an old game, like us. Their game got unplugged ages ago, very unfortunate, so we invited them in our game. Apart from Q*bert, the rest now help me in the Bonus Level.”

 “So…why didn’t I see them earlier in the game?”

 I stop in my tracks: RJ did have a point; I didn’t see them at all today. “Maybe today they just wanted a day off, that’s all.”

 “Okay…” RJ mutters to himself, glitching again. The ground shakes a little beneath us. Suddenly, he gasps “what is that?!”

 A round orange being with a long nose and legs runs towards us. I smile, “speak of the devil,” and I pick him up. “How you’re doing today, Q*bert?”

 “*# &$%@” 

 “And…what does that mean?” RJ asks, scratching his head.

 “I think it simply means that he’s fine,” I say as I put Q*bert down again. Since we invited the guys from Q*bert, I have been trying to brush up my Q*bert-ese with the help of Felix. It hasn’t been smooth sailing, I’ll admit.

 We walk further into East Niceland, and RJ gazes around in wonder at all the sights around him. Seeing him is like seeing a child taking his first steps into the wide open world.

 “So, my brother, right?” I causally ask “why did you get locked up?”

 RJ pauses for a moment, stopping in his tracks “Well, my parents found out that I was a glitch, so they didn’t really want me. Then, um…they locked me up.”

 “What terrible parents.” I mutter. “Well, it’s a good thing that you were not deleted; but then again, it is pretty difficult to completely delete a character.” I thought of Vanellope again. Which is when…

 “Hey, actually I have some stuff I need to do tonight. I don’t think you’d like that I throw you behind, so why don’t you come with me?”

 RJ’s face slightly falls at my words, but then beams as he heard that he could join me. “Sure, why not?”

RJ 

 We head over to the train station, which is quite near East Niceland.

 “Just in time.” I hear Ralph say as the train smoothly glided into the station. The train is of the three cars joined together, each car allowing 2 characters, or in this case, 1 wrecker to sit in.

 “After you,” Ralph says, bowing and gesturing to the first car. I can’t help giggling as I step into the car, squeezing in my body.

 Ralph slips into the car behind me. The train jolts, and starts moving forward into the tunnel ahead. 

 “So what’s the end point?” I ask.

 “Game Central Station. A place where all characters meet and go to other other games.”

 “Sounds cool.” I say back.

 When we get to the tunnel, I suddenly hear a loud buzzing noise and I look up. What seemed like an opaque wall over the tunnel entrance is quickly descending. I gulp. _“This cannot be good.”_

 Turns out I was right: I slam into the wall and fall backwards, knocking Ralph over and tumbling onto the train tracks. I glance and see the now-empty train disappearing into the distance. 

 “Wait, what? What happened?” I ask Ralph, still sprawled on the tracks.

 “Can’t believe I forgot it…” Ralph says, rubbing his head. “You’re a glitch. Glitches can’t leave their games.”

 “You mean…I’m _stuck_ here?!” I practically yell.

 “Well, um…yeah.”

 I look up at the tunnel in disbelief. _“Stuck here in this game?!”_ I think; this has to be a lie, it has to. 

 I walk over to the tunnel entrance and gently place my hand on what seems to a patch of nothingness. Sure enough, I hear the same buzzing noise from above and my hand is forced against the same opaque wall from before. I push with all my might against the seemingly invisible wall, but my strength is no match for the force that pushed back.

 Ralph walks over to me and to the tunnel entrance, right in the place where the ‘wall’ is located. He walks freely back and forth, while with a sad expression on his face.

 I sob. I can’t leave, I can’t leave this game. I look at the tunnel and imagine what lies at the end. But even if I wished with all my heart, I cannot go and discover it.

 Ralph is right: I am stuck here.

 “You keep going,” I tell Ralph, lowering my head “I’ll just stay here till you return.”

 Ralph thinks for a moment, then nods his head. “Fine, if you say so.” He points to what seems like a red mountain next to East Niceland. “Wait there by the pile of bricks; I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

 “Okay.” I mutter. I lumber towards the bricks and sit down, the broken bricks somehow comfortable   
despite their appearance. 

 I glitch again. When I look down, I see a small crack in the ground below, running for quite a distance and ending at my feet. I gulp. My secret might be revealed faster than I have thought.

 When I look back up, the train has returned and Ralph is just climbing into the car. He looks up, expecting me to return his gaze.

 I don’t look at him; instead I keep my eyes fixed to the starry sky above until I hear the train move away, and I am alone by myself again. 

 I don’t wanna leave, but time is running out.

 What’s a glitch to do?

 I lay back in the bricks, thinking quickly about my next move.


End file.
